“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As he began the interview, Jack Cole told the unseen audience that I was a medium who spoke for a personality called Seth. He emphasized that my presence on the show didn’t necessarily mean that he or Sonja accepted Seth’s independent existence. I smiled, somewhat ruefully. Many people feel duty-bound to express skepticism as if it were an automatic badge of honor and intellectual superiority. I’d done the same thing in the past, so I could understand the attitude.

When I came out of trance, Rob was smiling, Jack and Sonja looked dazed, the camera crew were staring at me and the program was over. “Seth was great,” Rob said to me. I was overwhelmed with relief. It was over, then; Seth had come through on television. Hadn’t I alternately hoped that he would and been reluctant at the same time?

“Are you okay? Can I get you anything?” Jack asked. He looked so concerned that I laughed automatically.

First of all, as always, my face changed expression drastically, and I began to speak in a deep male-like voice. My own characteristic gestures vanished, to be replaced by Seth’s. He turned toward the camera, speaking directly to the viewers for perhaps ten minutes. By then, Sonja and Jack recovered from their surprise, and Jack asked Seth if he would speak about reincarnation.

Immediately Seth launched into a discussion of Sonja’s past life experiences. In the time available, he dwelt on one life in particular, during which he said Sonja had a cleft palate that impeded verbal communication. According to Seth, this partially accounted for her interest in the field of communications now. He also said that Sonja loved color and fabric and that she used these as a method of communication in the past life as well as in this one. Some names and places in fourteenth-century England were given, and these are being checked out.

You could say, if you wanted to, that Seth intruded himself from some unconscious dimension into my conscious life, yet now he is such a part of my professional and personal experience that much of my time is spent studying and interpreting his theories. His appearance on television seems to represent a further step in his “objectification,” which is to me, an astonishing one.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that in dream life I’m writing a book about waking consciousness just as, with my waking consciousness, I’m writing about the reality of dreams. It wouldn’t astonish me either to learn that Seth in an entirely different dimension speaks for a personality called Jane. In fact, I sometimes amuse myself by imagining a situation in which Seth wonders if Jane is a secondary personality with an obsessive belief in some improbable physical reality. Seth, however, is far more knowledgeable than I am, so if he were speaking for me, then I’m afraid he would get the lesser end of the bargain.

And, as far as I know, Seth has no imprisoning body. He projects part of his consciousness, at least at times, into mine. Curious thought — I can also imagine some good-humored game of musical chairs in which I try to get out of my body, while Seth tries to get into it. While this presents a rather hilarious image, it is actually unfair. Seth doesn’t have any great interest in taking over my body for any length of time, while I have an insatiable curiosity about the experience of getting out of mine.

I don’t “become” Seth. Instead, I seem to bask in what he is, or in his presence, if you prefer. Sometimes I am distantly aware that my facial muscles are being rearranged as they mirror Seth’s emotions rather than mine. But then, for me, the reality of the room vanishes. Though my eyes are wide open, it is Seth who looks out and smiles at Rob; Seth who speaks through my lips, discussing the nature of reality and existence from the viewpoint of someone not confined to the three-dimensional world.

On Tuesday nights I hold an ESP class, and often Seth addresses the students, explaining his ideas in terms of every-day life, relating them to personal conduct. Often he speaks to individual students, encouraging them to use their own abilities and solve their own problems. His psychological understanding is excellent. He seems to be a personality enjoying the full richness of experience and potential.

Fortunately or unfortunately, however, I suspect that our relationship is far more complex. One thing I know: Seth does not have his present basic existence in the three-dimensional world, and I do. He has given us instructions that allow Rob, my students and myself to take our own sometimes faltering steps out of our usual physical reality. He initiated our exploration into the universe of dreams, for example, and is therefore largely responsible for this book. But we must return to our normal daily dimension of actuality. And Seth returns to his.

Even without a physical form, Seth is highly effective in our world. Through me, he is producing the Seth Material, a continuing manuscript dealing with the nature of reality, consciousness and identity that now totals over fifty notebooks. He is also dictating his own book: Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. To date, we have held nearly six hundred sessions. In fact, he seems to operate more efficiently in his contacts with physical reality than I do in my journeys into dimensions more naturally considered his.

Seth calls himself an energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality. Whoever or whatever he is, he is well equipped to discuss the nature of nonphysical existence and to serve as a guide through the other side of consciousness, for it is his natural environment. He comes as a visitor from levels of awareness beyond those with which we are usually acquainted.

In the 28th Session, he used an analogy to explain this dual conscious focus:

The water analogy intrigues me, though it can’t be followed too far without leading to distortions. A scuba diver, for instance, explores what he finds on the ocean floor and brings us clues from this vast, submerged area. I try to do the same thing, salvaging instead clues from the hidden layers of our inner being. But if he goes far enough, the scuba diver must somewhere come to the bottom of the ocean, and I don’t believe there is any bottom or boundary to this inner reality. Instead, I suspect that there are even stranger chasms and openings into other worlds of whose existence we are quite unaware — pools of creativity, consciousness and experience, from which not only our three-dimensional reality but also others spring.